Juniper (JNPR) shares are modestly higher in early trading after Oppenheimer analyst Ittai Kidron upped his rating on the stock to Outperform from Perform, setting a $31 price target. The stock closed yesterday at $24.70.

Kidron writes in a research note that the carrier spending on IP routing should recover next year, and then return to double-digit growth rats. He also believes data center consolidation and virtualization “opens the door for Juniper to leverage its high performance solutions and expand its enterprise market presence driving share gains.” And he while “HP is a missed OEM opportunity,” he still thinks there are “material multiple upside opportunities” for comparable deals at IBM and Dell. Kidron contends the stock is “an attractive long-term core holding.”